Spin Me a Yarn -- The Tale of a Legendary Stitch-n-Bitch
by thingamawhatsit
Summary: Len picks up knitting again as physical therapy for his hand, and it spreads like a contagious disease.
Len first learned how to knit when he was in juvie. Part of some effort to reform them through arts and crafts. Or maybe just trying to direct creative efforts away from new and exciting methods of making shivs, pruno, and improvised tattooing devices. Considering that the kid that did most of the tattooing moved on to own his own business, and as far as Len knows nobody from juvie ever went on to live off of arts and crafts, the rehabilitation efforts left something to be desired.

Len had been one of the only boys to really take to knitting, damn near getting in a fight to secure the best golden yellow yarn available. With the amount of time available most kids ended up with some weird hobby or another. One kid caught lizards and kept them as pets, one guy pretty much made a replica of all the animals on Noah's ark out of origami. Being the kid that knitted wasn't near enough to get him on anyone's shit list, at least not any more than an ex-cop for a dad and smart mouth.

It may have helped that Mick followed along when Len went to arts and crafts and learned how to crochet, taking a weird pleasure in covering his cell with all kinds of doilies in obnoxious colors, until it looked like grandma's house on an acid trip.

Unsurprisingly Len had made gifts for Lisa. A matching pair of gloves, a scarf, and a beanie. All of which, after more restarts and setbacks than Len liked to admit, came out looking like they could have been bought in a store. An important feature for any clothing worn by a young girl before handmade made it back it style.

When he'd tried to send them home, hoping that by some miracle of the crappy mail system Lisa would get them by her birthday, one of the officers had all three items confiscated. Officer Gallagher was one of the guards that believed it was his job to punish every kid that walked through the door into juvie, like being away from Lisa wasn't the worst form of punishment all on its own. It was that day that Len found out that, while not always strictly enforced, everything that an inmate made was considered property of the state.

Including the items made at arts and crafts.

The matching items, handmade with the hope of giving Lisa something for the first birthday he would miss, were auctioned off with the proceeds going into the states coffer.

The auctions, never well-advertised, were attended almost exclusively by guards and other state employees. Officer Gallagher bought the set for twenty dollars as a gift for his daughter.

And Len stopped knitting.

At least until one day, some thirty years down the line he found himself with a functional, but not quite _right_ new hand, and a shiny pair of knitting needles courtesy of Rip's mum and a slight case of kleptomania.

(What? If they know you're a thief when they invite you in to their house, or in _some cases_ find you already there, then it's practically rude _not_ to steal something.)

* * *

Gideon fabricated the yarn, and was able to pull up both plenty of patterns, and a few tutorials – first for refreshers and then for instructions on stitches of increasing complexity.

It was…surprisingly relaxing. Letting go of everything that was going on, all of the craziness with Mick, with Savage, with their younger selves and the vague but haunting threat of non-existence that everyone tried to ignore hanging over their heads.

Instead of dwelling on the sleepless nights and empty hours Len focused on his knitting. One knit, one purl, one yarn over or cable stitch at a time.

And at the end of each project the satisfaction of a job well done, of knowing something existed because of him where before there had been nothing.

Mick, who had burned all his many colored doilies in solidarity after everything with Officer Gallagher, was the first one to find out about Len's new old hobby. He walked into Len's room one day, stopped briefly at the sight of Len half covered in a project and an unruly skein of yarn, and furrowed his brow in concentration for a moment.

"Your hand bothering you?" he asked, his voice careful, but not hesitant. It was the closest that they had yet to come to talking about Len's temporary loss of limb, and one of the many things that seemed out of bounds as they fumbled their way back into each other's company.

"It's better now. Mostly." He still wakes up with weird phantom pains sometimes, but Len figures it's the best of a bunch of horrible choices from that day on what'll wake him up screaming.

Mick grunts, not happy, but taking it as it is. He sits down next to Len and pulls out the heat gun, which he starts to disassemble and clean.

An hour later Len sets aside the one project, and makes a quick trip to the fabrication room. He comes back with another pair of knitting needles, these ones connected on ones side by a thin plastic wire, and a skein of warm green yarn. Mick's favorite color, even though everyone always assumes it would be something in red.

He knits Mick a beanie.

* * *

One of Len's problems is, well, he tends become a little bit… _obsessed_ …when he finds a good challenge.

And with their younger selves safely back where they belong, and his main large project completed he starts in on a shawl. Something delicate, and lacey. Not something for Lisa, because it's definitely not her style. Mostly just to try something new.

Somehow, on the nice delicate looking lace pattern, he snaps the wooden needles he lifted after dropping baby Jax off in half.

How does that even happen? How does some thin little scrap of yarn tighten up enough that trying to knit one tiny little stitch breaks wood instead of snapping the thread? Not that snapped yarn would be any better, any less frustrating. Just a hell of a lot more understandable.

So he might get a little over zealous in working on the damn thing, and forget that he was, while not actively hiding his knitting, at the very least not broadcasting it.

That all goes to hell when he spends one sleepless night working on the shawl over a pot of coffee in the kitchen. He doesn't even quite realize it, eerily used to the others being in his space, until Raymond coughs and Len looks up to find everyone looking at him.

"What?" he snaps.

"Nothing!" says Raymond, eyes wide and hands up in a placating gesture. "Just…wondering if you wanted waffles?" It's a cover for them staring, probably, but at this point Len will take it.

He throws down his knitting in disgust. Whoever decided that purl seven together was a thing that should exist should be hung, quartered, and lit on fire. Not necessarily in that order.

"With strawberries, please."

Kendra cautiously takes a peek at his knitting. "May I?"

"Knock yourself out."

She picks up the shawl carefully, and spends a few moments studying the completed section before wrapping the yarn around her right hand and delicately grabbing hold of the needles. As Len watches she easily knits up not just the purl seven together, but the entire row. And the next. And the next. All in pattern.

Sara blinks, and slurps a sip of her coffee annoyingly. Because any time before seven o'clock Sara reverts into the brattiest little sister ever, and lives to make others, like Len, cringe. "You know how to knit?"

Len side eyes Sara, but her eyes are on Kendra, not on Len, so the question is not as stupid as his sleep addled brain had first supposed.

"Never have a day in my life," says Kendra, a happy little smile twisting on her lips. "This one anyways. I guess I must have in one of my past lives."

Len is not going to kill Kendra. It would not be a good thing if he killed Kendra. He would look like a total hypocrite to Rip if he killed Kendra after all of his talks about how to properly treat your crew. And as much as he hates Kendra in this moment, with a burning intensity, his dislike of Rip far supersedes any grievances over knitting ability.

He's not letting Kendra have the shawl though. She can make her own fucking shawl with her ridiculous past life knitting powers.

Sara snorts a laugh at Len's face, trying to hide behind her cup of coffee.

Yeah, she isn't getting it either. The brat.

Ray walks up in the middle of it with a hesitant smile. "Waffles?"

* * *

Sara totally ends up getting the shawl.

* * *

With his hobby no longer a secret Len began to take small projects with him on missions. Usually something along the lines of socks or gloves, the projects were small enough to fit easily into one of the many pockets in his parka. For these particular projects he requisitioned a small, double sided needles, with sharp ends to better combat the lace patterns he tortured himself with. He _would_ get better at them, and eventually be able to tackle the shawl patterns again. On his own. Without help from miss four thousand years of experience, fabricating weird belts and needles and resurrecting lost knitting techniques.

Which is a good reason _not_ to kill her. _Not_ a reason to want to strangle her with his circular needles.

And he will really and honestly believe that as soon as he works through his trouble with knitting lace patterns.

* * *

Mick takes crocheting back up.

He makes doily after doily in eye screeching colors.

Putrid Pastel Green.

Nauseating Neon Pink.

Variegated Orange Camouflage.

And then he uses them to decorate Rip's office.

It's fucking wonderful, even if the pieces only stay in place for a day or two at a time.

* * *

He and Sara are on a mission in 1920's, and at this point it's mostly recon.

Which means it's boring.

Which means Len is working on his knitting.

When suddenly a cult of assholes attack, knocking Len's knitting out of his hands and sending it skittering across the ground.

It's all something something, a golden dawn, something something, prophecy, something something, we must take you to _incubate our future leader_ and – nope. Not happening.

(Also hopefully a onetime specific thing, because if whatever cult becomes the new subplot of their little mission Len is officially jumping ship. There is a limit to every man's motivation and he has found his in the word _incubate_.

Besides being creepy as fuck it goes completely contrary to the cold theme.)

Unfortunately the cult of assholes, while not nearly as good as Len, and thus leagues below Sara's level of badass, seem to _cult_ ivate a certain cannon fodder mentality designed more to wear them down. Len creates a wall of ice for Sara and him to put at their backs, and slow down the rate cultists dying at their feet, but it's not too long before even Sara runs out of knives, and the cold from the wall of ice starts to slow her down.

Len's busy with his own cannon fodder, trying to make as quick work of them as possible, when _it_ happens.

Sara grabs his knitting off the ground, and jabs the needles into some goons eye, spurting blood into the air and _all over the sock he was knitting._

It's ruined. The nice, soft, blue wool turning brown and lumpy with coagulating blood and eye juice.

He was more than half way done with his second sock, and now it is _ruined._

Fuming he considers that it may be a good thing he didn't see the moment Sara ruined his project.

He can't guarantee he would have frozen the dead man and not Sara, standing smug over the man's body now that the last of the cultists are disposed of.

"You know," she says, grinning. "I think I'm starting to see what you do in knitting."

Oh, she was going to see all right.

* * *

Len teaches Sara how to knit, starting her off on a relatively simple beanie. They are gathered in the control room of the Waverider, with Kendra and Mick working on their own projects. Kendra something ridiculously complicated that she breezes through while barely looking, and Mick on something that is for once not a doily. Len decides he'd rather not know. Jax wonders in at some point while Len is teaching Sara a cast on, takes one look around, and shrugs to himself.

"Can I get in on this?" Len raises an eyebrow in question. "Man, anything has got to be better than listening to Grey go on about some science stuff."

"Have Gideon fabricate you the same needles that Sara has, and a skein of yarn, whatever color you want."

"Cool, man." Len smirks to himself a bit at the unintentional pun.

A while later both of Len's students have managed a few rows in a simple rib pattern, and their stitches are beginning to become something resembling even. Len smirks a little to himself. "All right, now take it all out and start over again."

It's the little evils that you just have to stop and appreciate.

Jax groans, but obediently unravels his work, rolling the kinked up yarn into a smaller ball to the side of the main skein.

Sara's lips twist up at one end, and she gets a spark in her eye, holding Len's gaze in an obvious challenge.

"Nah. I think I like the wobbly bit. Gives it character."

Len meets her gaze with a cold glare of his own.

Sara holds his gaze, unfazed. Carefully she knits two, and purls two. Not only out of pattern, but off a stitch so that it isn't even a reversal of the ribbing. Just _wrong_.

Len's eye twitches.

Sara is _such a fucking brat._

* * *

Jax takes up knitting socks. Len claims the second completed pair - his rightful due as the kid's teacher. The first pair the kid keeps for himself.

Every pair after is a competition to win Jax's favor, even when Jax has already decided on a relatively fair distribution pattern.

Sara continues to knit things lopsided, and looking like it was made by a two year old, often declaring her projects finished well before they actually are and then silently daring whichever victim she gifts the item to not to wear it.

Everyone wears their gifts from Sara at least once.

* * *

At some point Jax teaches Stein how to knit as well, or perhaps he just picks it up at some point through their weird Firestorm bond. Whatever the case may be it is not long before he also joins their little work sessions in the control room. None of them understand the mathematical equations that Stein knits, though he assures them his knitting is both quite accurate and impressive.

So really not much different than dealing with the Professor on any given subject matter.

* * *

Raymond is not allowed to knit. Or Crochet. Or do anything other than look pretty and entertain the girls while they work on their projects.

Because Raymond handling crafts is an absolute disaster.

Because somehow, before the very firm anti-crafting rule is put in place for Raymond, he manages not only to take a chunk out of his own thigh with dull tipped needles, but to almost strangle himself with yarn.

Len makes him a sweater, just to get the stupid kicked puppy look off of his face.

Sara also make him a sweater, but she does it with a chunky glow in the dark yarn, and stops half way through so it hangs on Raymond like a belly shirt.

He wears both of them at the same time, a ridiculously pleased smile on his face.

* * *

He's working on something for Lisa, for when they get back to 2016, when he starts to notice Jax giving him _looks_.

Sad, disappointed _looks._

"What?"

Jax ducks his head. "Nothing, man."

Len levels Jax with a look of his own, one he perfected with Lisa during her teenage years.

Jax rubs the back of his head. "It's just, I mean. You've made something for everyone on the team now."

Len raises an eyebrow. "Yes."

"Even Gray got a pair of gloves. And you made Kendra that little stuffed dragon dude."

Len inches his eyebrow slightly higher. He has two centimeters left of questioning eyebrow space before he turns around and leaves.

"Just, you know, everybody but me."

Len studies the kid for a moment, and then lets out a sigh. The whole knitting thing is out there, and it's getting harder and harder to deny he doesn't at least somewhat like these people. No point in keeping it a secret any longer.

"I already made you something. One of the projects I did before our friendly reincarnated goddess _miraculously_ remembered four thousand years of knitting experience." What? He's bitter. It's practically an expected trait.

Jax's face scrunches up in confusion. "When was this?"

Len shrugs, like it's no big deal. It's not. "Just before we returned our younger selves to the time line."

Jax frowns, obviously trying to figure out what it could be, and then his face clears, head jerking up to look Len in the eyes. "No way!"

Len can feel the corner of his mouth twitching.

"It was you? You're the one who gave me my mystery blankie?"

Len smirks, then turns around and walks away, leaving the kid sputtering in the hallway.

It was good to know that they had kept the "mystery blankie" though.

* * *

It's pretty hard to miss all of the knitting (and crocheting) going on in the Waverider, especially with his office receiving random ugly doilies on a regular basis.

If anyone could be that dense though Len would put his money on Rip Hunter.

They are all gathered in the control room, yet again, when Rip storms in, his coat swirling around him in a completely wasted dramatic effect. "What in the world is going on in here?!"

They all turn to face him. Len raises an eyebrow, because really it should be fairly obvious, but otherwise no one seems inclined to respond.

Gideon answers for them. "I believe the colloquial term is a 'stitch-n-bitch,' Captain Hunter."

"A what?"

"An event at which people gather to work on various knitting, crochet, or other yarn based hobby in each other's company. Sometimes attended for the mutual benefit of short term mentor/mentee relationships between members the general focus is often distinctly social in nature resulting in the 'bitching' aspect of the gatherings."

Rip grits his teeth. "Thank you, Gideon. Perhaps a more salient question would be _why_ the _legends_ I have recruited from across time are currently holding a…'stitch and bitch' in the control room?"

"Isn't it obvious," drawls Len. "We're _teambuilding._ "

Sara muffles a snort. She was _just_ bitching about the dear Captain before he made his entrance.

Raymond pulls out the innocent eyes – which is bullshit, he was just talking to Mick about the new project Len has avoiding asking about, a _dick cozy_ of all things, curiously asking about its uses and how you go about sizing for something like that as if he isn't talking about a _dick cozy_. "Would you like to join us?"

"Why would I ever want to make my own clothing when Gideon can fabricate anything I would like in a fraction of the time?"

"It's fun."

"Relaxing."

"Quite interesting, really."

"Somethin' to do at least."

Rip sighs, heavily. "Fine, I'll join you in your ridiculous 'stitching.'"

Rip grumbles the entire time about how useless it all is, starts new projects every time he sits down, and rarely if ever finishes anything.

So really, nothing too surprising there.

* * *

Ray reaches the door to his room on the Waverider, and carefully checks the hallway for any other signs of life.

"The hallway is clear, Mr. Palmer."

Ray smiles. "Thanks Gideon."

He sneaks into his own room and opens up a bundle of ever so soft goods. The newest of Mick's doilies, and the dick cozy (which had temporarily decorated Rip's desk, tall and at attention right next to the feather pen), all taken from their spots in Rip's office. Unfinished projects curtesy of Rip, and a few monstrosities of Sara's that the other managed to "forget" somewhere on the ship. He puts them on his bed, carefully arranging them for maximum softness and squishiness.

He changes into a pair of flannel pajamas, and the socks that Jax made him, and snuggles tightly into the nest of materials on his bed, pulling one side down so that the items fall over him in the semblance of a blanket.

Hey, maybe he can get someone to make him an actual blanket to top off his little nest? That would be the _best._

He really hopes that they all continue the stitch and bitches after they defeat Savage. He has no idea how he's going to get everything off the ship without the others noticing.

But it's all so _soft_. It's the best sleep he's had since before he was presumed dead!


End file.
